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Thursday, April 2, 2015

How can any rational human being vote Republican with a clear conscience?

Barbra Streisand. (photo: unknown)

Obama Has Turned the Economy Around

By Barbra Streisand, Reader Supported News

01 April 15readersupportednews.org

n
the wake of the financial crisis, President Obama took the helm of a
sinking economic ship and helped to right it. The unemployment rate is
now once again at pre-recession levels -- the lowest in seven years
(5.5%).

President Obama's Administration, with only opposition from the Republicans, has steadily helped put more than 11 million Americans
back to work in the private sector. In the strongest period of American
manufacturing job growth since the 1990s, the sector has added more
than 750,000 jobs since February 2010. As New York Times columnist Paul Krugman notes, the economy is "now adding jobs at a rate not seen since the Clinton years." The dollar is on its fastest rise in 40 years; its value has increased 14% in this first quarter alone and it's the strongest it's been in 12 years compared to the Euro.

Maybe most important, the number of long-term unemployed is down by 1.1 million. Why are the Republicans so silent about the good news? They claim to be the party of "jobs." Perhaps they knew their history.

PBS
pointed out a study from the "strictly non-partisan National Bureau for
Economic Research" that shows "under Democratic presidents, per capita
GDP has been higher; job creation has been stronger; decreases in
unemployment have been greater; the S&P 500 stock index has been
higher; corporate profits have been bigger; and real wages and labor
productivity have increased."

As Brad Plumer also noted in the Washington Post,
"Since World War II, there's been a strikingly consistent pattern in
American politics: The economy does much better when a Democrat is in
the White House... the U.S. economy has grown at an average real rate of
4.35 percent under Democratic presidents and just 2.54 percent under
Republicans." If one drops the Eisenhower years, it is far worse for the
GOP.

This pattern holds true under President Obama. The conservative Wall Street Journal
had to admit, "American families have made major progress cutting their
debt burdens, putting them in a stronger position to drive spending and
growth. Total U.S. household debt was about 107% of disposable income
in the fourth quarter, down from 108% in the previous quarter and well
over 130% before the recession." Under President Obama, the deficit continues to fall even more since being cut in half by 2013 from 2009. In his first term, the president also cut taxes by $3,600 for the average middle-class family.

The frustration now is the lack of wage increases --
an obstacle that must be overcome both by raising the minimum wage and
our corporations rewarding the increase in productivity among our
workers. Of course there's not been an encouraging word from the GOP,
which opposes any increase in the federal minimum wage. In fact, their
2016 frontrunner, Jeb Bush, does not think there should be a federal
minimum wage.

The GOP does not care to understand the late Senator
Paul Wellstone's maxim, "We all do better when we all do better."
Increasing wages means more economic demand for more goods and services,
and boosts the economy. Somehow, Republicans remain intent on cutting
taxes for the already rich and devastating domestic spending.

The House once again just proposed the "Ryan" budget
full of unexplained and mysterious trillions of dollars in savings while
cutting revenue, savaging domestic spending and proposing vouchers to
purchase insurance instead of traditional Medicare. As Krugman
writes, if it "were to become law, it would leave the federal
government several trillion dollars deeper in debt than claimed, and
that's just in the first decade." With the budget deficit radically
dropping under President Obama and the increasingly better jobs reports,
why would we believe these GOP austerity measures would help average
families? We don't because they won't. Krugman
again: "The simplest way to understand [the GOP budget proposals] is
surely to suppose that they are intended to do what they would, in fact,
actually do: make the rich richer and ordinary families poorer."

They're also intent on misrepresenting the economic facts of the Affordable Care Act. Thanks to the ACA, 16. 4 million previously uninsured adults now have health care coverage under the ACA. The Brookings Institution
pointed out in March that "more than 4.2 million households, or 7.5
million people, are likely to qualify for both the [Earned Income Tax
Credit] and [ACA's] premium tax credit" - - this in addition to
improved, comprehensive health care coverage. Over the next 10 years,
the Congressional Budget Office projected the ACA will actually cost $109 billion less than previously anticipated. And last year, the LA Times
reported, "Insurance premiums are lower than anticipated, the
Affordable Care Act will cost $9 billion less than previously estimated
and the provision designed to buffer insurance companies from risk will
actually raise revenue, not function as any sort of federal government
bailout."

The Republican response to how the ACA is helping Americans and heath care costs is to try to repeal it (56 times as of February)
and attempt to hobble it with litigation. GOP presidential candidate,
Senator Ted Cruz, who this week vowed to "repeal every word of
Obamacare," hypocritically receives health insurance for his family
through the Federal "Obamacare" exchange.

Are Republicans who control both houses of Congress
interested in governing or will they remain stuck in their ideological
corner? Their current approval rating of 11% does not seem to faze them,
so the signs are not encouraging. In an unprecedented move, 47 Senate
Republicans just signed a letter deliberately undermining both our
President and important allies' in the negotiation to halt nuclear arms
proliferation by Iran.

So it looks like the facts be damned, the GOP has
decided that the ideological corner is where they will remain. The
voters will have a chance next year to change this.

Comments

Babs, you need to take a trip over to zerohedge or Stockman's Contra-corner for the real economic news and facts. This
is pure Dem-fantasy, next it'll be just click the heels of your Ruby
Slippers slippers three times and repeat three times, "There's no
economy like Hope and Change". Sorry, you'll wake up with Toto gnawing on your leg because he hasn't been fed in weeks... Babs how about you offer to sing "Over the Rainbow" at Killary's inauguration? That'll make it ALL BETTER.

Well, AP, why don't
you enlighten us with the real "facts," because so far you have offered
nothing to disprove the numbers reported in the Wall Street Journal
(hardly a liberal publication) Washington Post (same), LA Times, and New
York Times. All that's clear from your post is that you are just
another garden-variety Obama hater, and like your fellow occupants of
the right-wing echo chamber, you either deny or ignore any facts that
undermine your wretched agenda.Go back to the alternate un-reality of Faux "News." There you are guaranteed to only hear "facts" you can agree with.

Larry, I agree with
AP and I'm no conservative, never have been and abhor even the idea of
it. However it is definitely the Democrats getting the wool pulled over
their eyes now. I used to be a "liberal" and proud of it but I don't go
for anyone who has a kill list and a drone warfare program. I don't care
what party he or she is from. The entire edifice is a fraud, everyone
you have ever voted for or had the opportunity to vote for are whores
for banks and vandalism energy (fossil fuels and nuclear) You even slip
on your own banana skin there by showing how closed your mind is when
you think that the only ones who can see the great pretenders for what
they are, Obama included, it must be because they are "on the other
side". Very faulty thinking. If you really want to know the truth, find
out how money is created. Anyone who does not know this is not qualified
to speak on anything political or economic. Surely something as
fundamental as how money is created ought to be known before issuing
conclusions about the views of others. Fallacious once, fallacious
twice....

Floe, during the
first presidential campaign, as the GOP was shrieking "He's a
socialist!" I thought Obama actually came across as slightly right of
center, certainly nowhere near being a traditional liberal. I don't like
everything he has done (and not done), but this article is just about
the improving economy. And the numbers are what they are. There are
plenty of opportunities to criticize the president, but in the case of
the economy I think he has done an amazing job repairing the
catastrophic damage done by W and his puppeteers.

#Larry:---
I'm throwing in with Floe. Obama could have done a WHOLE LOT BETTER and a
whole lot sooner. He's been gradually taking the economy back up,
alright, but at a snails pace allowing the corporations to siphon the
living daylights out of working people while giving 750 BILLION dollars
to Wall Street for their irresponsible, selfish, ruthless and capricious
buyer beware behavior. Instead of funneling that money to the bottom
(like a Democrat) he force fed the 1% and stayed the (R) supply side
course. Obama has consistently practiced supply side economics and
thwarted consumer driven economics all the way. W sent out
checks to everyone for a couple of hundred dollars. If Obama had taken
that 750 Billion and sent everybody a check, each and every adult US
citizen in this country would have received a check for one quarter of a
million dollars. Now, don't you think a lot of school debt, medical
bills, mortgages, car loans, etc., would have gotten paid off and jump
started the economy a WHOLE LOT SOONER??? And instead of
nationalizing the health care, this president saddled us with warmed
over Dole/Romney (Rethuglicon) care that further suctions out the
pockets of the working class people. And now, he's on the brink
of signing off on TPP that will REALLY screw this country over. You
people that look at Obama with stars in your eyes need to get off the
Kool-aid!

Hey Larry!! All those
major media sources you and Barbara quote are brought to you by the
banksters. Larry did not say anything about Obama. He did imply it was
all pure Dem-fantasy and I agree. Yes, things are just fine for those
rich bastards. They are over the rainbow in pure bliss, but the number
of homeless and hungry people far, far exceed them in numbers. All those
happy 1%ers just step over the people on the street with no sene of
compassion or empathy. I guess feeding their greed is all the emotional
power they have. These are the ME,Me, Me people don't give a damn for
99% of the people in this nation. I guess it is lots of fun for you and
Babs who have lots of money to step over the poor, but watch out! We may
be reaching a pitch fork and guillotine rebellion that you may not
enjoy.

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